Friday, June 02, 2017

Noriega

Trina's "Panama (not the Van Halen song)" dealt with Poppy Bush and Manual Noriega. I enjoyed it. Also? James McEnteer (DISSIDENT VOICE) writes:At midnight, December 19,
1989, President George Herbert Walker Bush sent 26,000 U.S. troops – in
the largest combat operation since Vietnam – to invade Panama, for the
ostensible reason of bringing Manual Noriega to trial in the United
States on drug charges and liberating Panama from his dictatorship.
Mainstream American media broadcast the Bush claims without comment. Nor
did they contest the official U.S. figure of 250 deaths from the
attack.

Barbara Trent’s 1993 Oscar-winning documentary, The Panama Deception,
revealed a very different reality in Panama. Her film shows the
terrible physical destruction in Panama’s working-class neighborhoods.
She discovered that the dead actually numbered between 2,500 and 4,000,
along with 18,000 residents forced into detention centers and another
7,000 arrested without charges. She shows some of the mass graves where
U.S. forces dumped thousands of bodies and interviewed detainees still
warehoused in Panama years after the invasion. What Bush called a
“liberation” she exposed as a gratuitous massacre.

Trent also uncovered the real reason for the invasion: to destroy the
Panama Defense Forces (PDF), thus stopping the gradual turnover of the
Panama Canal to the Panamanians, scheduled to begin ten days after the
invasion. By the terms of the treaty, signed by President Carter in
1978, the United States would cede sovereignty of the canal to Panama
unless Panama was incapable of defending it.

Having destroyed the PDF, the United States passed a law in 1991 to
ensure continued U.S. presence in the Canal Zone on the grounds that
Panama could not defend it. Chutzpah of a high order. Trent also learned
that U.S. forces used the invasion to test new, unheard-of weapons on
the Panamanian people, a kind of dress rehearsal for the Persian Gulf
War the following year.

Trent’s powerful, important film is available to view in its entirety
right now on YouTube. It’s a scathing indictment, not only of U.S.
government hypocrisy and brutality, but of the complicit U.S. media that
will not and does not question the deceptive, murderous practices of
our government. PBS refused to screen Trent’s film, but as many
Americans as possible need to see it. Its messages remain urgent.

Noriega hid in the Vatican embassy for several days after the Bush
invasion, finally surrendering to spend the rest of his life in prison.
For his cynicism and his vanity, using a massive invasion and the murder
of thousands of Panamanians to distract from the economic problems of
his presidency and dispel the onus of “the wimp factor,” George Herbert
Walker Bush deserves to be remembered as a war criminal and an extreme
violator of human rights, a disgrace to the presidency and to the
species.

It's a truism that the world has grown numb to terrorist attacks
outside the West. When the Islamic State set off a car bomb on Tuesday outside a popular ice cream shop in Baghdad,
killing 13 people and wounding dozens more, no candlelight vigils took
place in Western cities. No imperial monuments were lit up in Iraqi
colors in European capitals. When militants set off a devastating
explosion in Kabul's diplomatic enclave on Wednesday, killing at
least 80 people and injuring hundreds more, no CNN anchor uploaded the flag of Afghanistan on social media. No pop stars organized solidarity concerts.

Part
of the contrast, of course, is the extent to which we are used to
hearing these stories. In the global news cycle, a bombing in Baghdad or
a Taliban strike in Kabul is like a typhoon in the Pacific or a Sean
Spicer gaffe. These things happen. If we pay attention at all, we do so
fleetingly, grimace at the calamity and move on.

Tharoor blames lays out a lot of blame for why that is in his column but neglects the media.

How do you do that?

How do you ignore the media?

The media is how the information is transmitted.

And the media is the problem.

You need huge numbers to feel moved if all you have is numbers.

The ice cream parlor bombing found 1 victim worthy of naming -- an Australian girl.

Hope that she would be the first named proved false because she was the only one named.

The Iraqi victims were left unnamed, rendered invisible.

And this happens over and over.

Deaths matter because life matters.

If you're not conveying the life lost, you're not doing the job.

The media is not doing its job.

Iraq and Afghanistan are US wars but the press can't be bothered with them on most days.

The rare attention the western media gives to Iraq usually focuses on
Mosul (and usually works overtime to paint that battle as a success).

The United Nations' count for May:

Baghdad, Iraq, 01 June 2017 – A total of 354 Iraqi civilians were
killed and another 470 injured in acts of terrorism, violence and armed
conflict in Iraq in May 2017*, according to casualty figures recorded
by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).

The number of civilians killed in May (not including
police) was 345, while the number of injured (not including police) was
446.

Of those figures, there were 160 civilians killed and 52
injured in Ninewa Governorate, 86 killed and 226 injured in Baghdad
Governorate, and 13 killed and 41 injured in Basra.

According to
information obtained by UNAMI from the Health Directorate in Anbar, the
Governorate suffered a total of 136 civilian casualties (47 killed and
89 injured). Figures are updated until 31 May, inclusive.

Special
Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for Iraq, Mr. Ján Kubiš,
decried the terrorists’ continued targeting of civilians, before and in
the early days of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

“The
terrorist[Islamic State] is in its death throws in Mosul, but it has continued to
stretch its wicked arm there and in other areas to relieve the military
pressure on it, deliberately aiming to kill and maim the maximum number
of civilians. [The Islamic State] has attacked with explosives a busy ice cream shop
in Baghdad where families gathered at night after Iftar. The terrorists
also hit on a street outside a government pension office in the capital,
and struck as far as the city of Basra in the south.”

The SRSG
lamented the loss of civilian lives as a result of the many bombings but
he was confident that the carnage committed by [the Islamic State] will not derail
the efforts of the Iraqis to rid their country of the terrorists.

“The
people of Iraq are resolute in their drive to liberate their land. As
painful as they are, these despicable attacks will serve to only
increase this determination,” Mr. Kubiš said.

*CAVEATS: In
general, UNAMI has been hindered in effectively verifying casualties in
conflict areas. Figures for casualties from Anbar Governorate are
provided by the Health Directorate and are noted in the May casualty
report. Casualty figures obtained from the Anbar Health Directorate
might not fully reflect the real number of casualties in those areas due
to the increased volatility of the situation on the ground and the
disruption of services. In some cases, UNAMI could only partially verify
certain incidents. UNAMI has also received, without being able to
verify, reports of large numbers of casualties along with unknown
numbers of persons who have died from secondary effects of violence
after having fled their homes due to exposure to the elements, lack of
water, food, medicines and health care. Since the start of the military
operations to retake Mosul and other areas in Ninewa, UNAMI has received
several reports of incidents involving civilian casualties, which at
times it has been unable to verify. For these reasons, the figures
reported have to be considered as the absolute minimum.

The Pentagon is asking for more a billion dollars in a
multi-year commitment to the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), in a sign the
U.S. role in Iraq and Syria is likely continue for the majority of
President Donald Trump’s first term.The budget provision
is likely a facet of Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Trump’s
overarching strategy to defeat the Islamic State. The new budget request
will provide the ISF with hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to
help the ISF contain the fall out from the Islamic State’s defeat in
the city of Mosul.

NATO marked an important step in its
deepening relations with Baghdad on Thursday (1 June 2017), as Mr. Paul
Smith of the United Kingdom assumed office as NATO Senior Civilian in
Iraq. Mr. Smith will represent the NATO Secretary General and the
Alliance at large, as NATO continues to help strengthen the Iraqi
security institutions in their fight against terrorism. Mr. Smith
succeeds Mr. Richard Froh of Canada, who served in the same capacity
over the past months.

Mr. Smith will liaise with a range of interlocutors, including
high-level Iraqi officials, representatives of the Global Coalition to
Defeat ISIS, the diplomatic community, and members of international
organizations, including the United Nations and the European Union. He
will also be at the helm of the NATO Training and Capacity Building
presence in Iraq (NTCB-I). This includes a Core Team of eight civilian
and military personnel as well as mobile training teams – provided by
NATO nations – who travel to Iraq, as required, to provide specific
courses agreed with the Iraqi authorities.NATO’s support to Iraq is aimed at increasing Iraq’s training
capacity in the medium and long term. It includes courses on countering
improvised explosive devices, explosive ordnance disposal and de-mining;
civil-military planning in support of operations; civil emergency
planning; training in military medicine; technical maintenance of
Soviet-era military equipment; and reform of the Iraqi security
institutions.NATO-Iraq relations are underpinned by an Individual Partnership and
Cooperation Programme signed in September 2012, which provides a
framework for political dialogue and tailored cooperation in mutually
agreed areas, and a Defence Capacity Building Package for Iraq, agreed
in 2015.Prior to taking office as NATO Senior Civilian Representative in
Iraq, Mr. Smith served in senior roles at the NATO Communications and
Information Agency; Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe; and the
UK Ministry of Defence.

This
will be the place where the antiwar and social justice movement
will come together this spring to discuss, map strategy and organize for
the coming period. Antiwar leaders from across the country and across
the world will be in attendance including: Ajamu Baraka, Medea Benjamin,
Glen Ford, Bernadette Ellorin, Bruce Gagnon, Lawrence Hamm, Jaribu
Hill, Jonathan W. Hutto, Sr, Margaret Kimberley, Ray McGovern, David
Swanson, Ann Wright, Kevin Zeese and many more. For a more complete
list of participants, please go to
http://www.unacconference2017.org/p/blog-page_4.html.

ALJAZEERA reports:More than 140 civilians have been killed in less than a week while trying to flee western Mosul, according to military sources, as the Iraqi army seeks to close in on fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in the armed group's last stronghold in Iraq.According to the military on Thursday, most of the fatalities were women and children.

The UNHCR's Andrej Mahecic notes:UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, urgently needs US$ 126 million to meet
critical needs of vulnerable children, women and men displaced from, and
returning to, Mosul, until the end of the year.
A shortage of funds threatens to undermine our humanitarian response at
this critical time. Heavy fighting is continuing, and UNHCR is expecting
more large movements of people from the west of the city where the
fighting is currently concentrated.Iraqi authorities say that more than three quarters of a million
Iraqis have been forced to flee Mosul since military operations started
in October.The vast majority of the internally displaced are families with
children and babies – groups that are especially vulnerable and would be
most affected by aid shortages should international support wither.
Nearly half of the urgently requested funds – US$ 60 million - is
required to assist more than 100,000 newly displaced Iraqi families with
emergency shelter in the camps, legal assistance to replace lost and
missing documents, child protection, prevention of sexual and gender
based violence, as well as to provide them with blankets, mattresses and
other core relief items. UNHCR has so far established 12 camps in
support of the overall efforts by the Iraqi authorities to provide
shelter to currently 316,000 internally displaced Iraqis in relative
proximity to Mosul.A further US$ 24 million is needed to assist and support Iraqi
families returning to their homes. It is estimated that 125,000
internally displaced people have returned to their homes, many in east
Mosul and on the outskirts of the city. Most of the returnees are living
in damaged buildings and need shelter assistance as well as cash
support. In areas of return, UNHCR and partners will provide material
assistance, including emergency shelter and sealing-off kits to help
returnees living in unfinished buildings, as well as essential
protection services, including psycho-social support, replacement of
missing and lost documents and protection monitoring.Lastly, US$ 42 million is required for on time procurement of shelter
and aid materials for next winter. To cope with eventual drops in
temperatures, UNHCR plans to assist 135,000 displaced and returnee
families with a range of core winter items including blankets, fuel,
jerry cans and heating stoves. This includes the provision of one-time
cash assistance of US$ 150 per family to 100,000 IDP and returnee
families to help them buy fuel to get through the winter.Since 2014, Iraq has suffered massive internal displacement. It is
estimated that up to three million Iraqis are still internally displaced
and another quarter of a million live as refugees in the neighbouring
countries.

Overall UNHCR protection and assistance programmes in Iraq amount to
578 million in 2017. These are currently 21 per cent funded which is a
cause for concern halfway through the year.